Venture in Europe is way more than the big hubs like Paris, London or Munich. And Valencia is a very good example for that. It is impressive what progress Valencia has been making as a venture hub, in particular under the leadership of mayor Maria José Catalá and Paula Llobet Vilarrasa.
And it is a blueprint what legacy big sports events can leave behind in terms of new infrastructure. In case of Valencia, it is the America’s Cup 2007. Almost every team base around the Americas Cup harbour has been renovated and converted into co-working spaces, office spaces or incubators for venture businesses.
Juan Roig, the owner and president of Mercadona supermarkets, has clearly played an instrumental role with launching the incubator Lanzadera, business school EDEM and seed fund Angels, all located around the harbour. The plans for the El Grau area and building another 90.000sqm of space for the venture ecosystem, both office space and housing, underlines the ambitions of the city government and further strengthening the combination of public and private initiatives.
A big part of it also is Startup Valencia with President Juan Luis Hortelano and his team, Krloos Rivera amongst others. They are the organisation behind Valencia Digital Summit (VDS) and are developing the office ecosystem for startups called “base2” which is located in the former German AC Team base.
